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Also note that when Google complies with these court orders they do so only within the jurisdiction of the court order, so in this case anyone within India will not receive these search results, but will instead see a message that some results have been removed due to court order.

ErichTheRed writes "This Computerworld piece actually got me thinking — it basically says that there are few good 'starter languages' to get students interested in programming. I remember hacking away at BASIC incessantly when I was a kid, and it taught me a lot about logic and computers in general. Has the level of abstraction in computer systems reached a point where beginners can't just code something quick without a huge amount of back-story? I find this to be the case now; scripting languages are good, but limited in what you can do... and GUI creation requires students to be familiar with a lot of concepts (event handling, etc.) that aren't intuitive for beginners. What would you show a beginner first — JavaScript? Python? How do you get the instant gratification we oldies got when sitting down in front of the early-80s home computers?"

If you think the Taliban does not have an internet presence you are sorely mistaken.While I doubt the coalition troops are in any danger from these documents, I do think there are a good number of villages that are in danger of reprisal attacks by the Taliban if they were to see the full documents.What better way to find the right targets than to read the nicely formatted official reports of your enemy?

These military actions have been mishandled from the start and at this point every time we make a friend and try to help someone out we are just painting a target on their back.The situation is complex, I'm not sure a good outcome is possible at this point, just pulling all the troops out will result in thousands of deaths due to our inaction and staying there is just prolonging the inevitable.

I have a similar answer, in that I only speak english on a regular basis, but I hear and mostly understand spanish(mexican dialect) and japanese on a regular basis. I also read and partially understand russian and german on a fairly regular basis.

suraj.sun sends in a followup to a story we've been following about the Texas Board of Education's efforts to put a more political spin on some of their state's textbooks. From the Dallas Morning News:
"In a landmark move that will shape the future education of millions of Texas schoolchildren, the State Board of Education on Friday approved new curriculum standards for US history and other social studies courses that reflect a more conservative tone than in the past. Split along party lines, the board delivered a pair of 9-5 votes to adopt the new standards, which will dictate what is taught in all Texas schools and provide the basis for future textbooks and student achievement tests over the next decade. Texas standards often wind up being taught in other states because national publishers typically tailor their materials to Texas, one of the biggest textbook purchasers in the country. Approval came after the GOP-dominated board approved a new curriculum standard that would encourage high school students to question the legal doctrine of church-state separation — a sore point for social conservative groups who disagree with court decisions that have affirmed the doctrine, including the ban on school-sponsored prayer."

I agree completely my first language was QBASIC and I didn't bring any of that with me, but I could still go back and do it just fine.That said if I were to teach someone how to program now I would probably use javascript.